How do people in China live with climate change now? How will its impacts shape their future, and how will they, in turn, shape their environment? What are the most effective ways to support people to adapt to climate change, and how best can the media, government, organisations and businesses communicate with them?

These are the questions behind Climate Asia, the world’s largest study of people’s everyday experience of climate change. The project surveyed 33,500 people across seven Asian countries – Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan and Vietnam. This included 5,062 households, and among these 223 opinion-formers in three large areas of China, and their experiences are at the heart of this report. We also held nine community assessments1 across the country.

Using both quantitative and qualitative research, we have built a picture of how different groups of people in China live and deal with change. This includes their values, livelihoods, use of food, water and energy, family life, worries, what they watch and listen to, whom they trust the most, what they hope for in future, and the environmental changes they have noticed or deal with already.